Niall’s<\/a> blogs, I was sad to hear the news that Lex de Haan’s illness has worsened. I knew he was ill because he couldn’t make the Scottish OUG Conference and was only able to attend part of the UKOUG conference but I was hoping he’d recover. Having said that, I don’t know Lex at all (even to say hello to) but I can still admire his contribution to the Oracle community, which is unlikely to be forgotten. In the end, I feel bad for any human being in bad health and their family and friends.<\/p>\nIt was strange to read the news this week as well, because I’d been considering a blog about someone else that none of you know.<\/p>\n
Joe Burns, my Dad, died four years ago tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll ever fully get over the fact that I won’t be able to speak to him again, but time softens some of the emotions. When I was younger he was a hard, scary man but, as I got older, we became a lot closer and I realised just how much I owed him and came to appreciate his strength, decency, integrity and his sense of humour. He was truly unique and left an impression on everyone who met him. Him and my Mum were inseperable (well, it turns out that was wrong) and the hole he left is a deep and wide one.<\/p>\n
I’ve hinted to a few people that there were a couple of difficult years there when Oracle conferences and the like couldn’t be further from my mind and that was the reason. Funnily enough, I must be one of the few people with a Dad who attended an Oracle conference! Because I was already a member and my registration was free as a speaker, I had a spare free place going for UKOUG 2000. I asked him if he wanted to go to see me present because he was very proud of his children. He didn’t drink or socialise, so his world revolved around his family, football and his job. He was delighted and took a trip down with me and my mum. He saw me speak and, although it might seem a bit weird to have your Dad there (!), you can imagine how glad I am now that I asked him. He was very proud.<\/p>\n
He came from a very limited, poor background but he made something of himself and his family through his own efforts and good will. Of course, his death (just after retirement) was ultimately his own fault because he’d smoked pretty heavily his whole life. Do I wish he hadn’t and I could have had him around for another 10 years? Sure. But then he would have been someone else and I’m proud of who he was.<\/p>\n
Of course, death is inevitable but his was sudden and I wasn’t there. I would swap every material possession for a couple of moments with him. Anyone who has been through a similar experience will understand. For those of you who haven’t been through the experience yet, my heart goes out to you when it does. But I can assure you that things do get better.<\/p>\n
I wish I had the faith that my Dad continued somewhere else, but I’ll settle for the presence he left inside those who knew him forever. He was genuinely one of the greatest men I’ve met.<\/p>\n
My warmest wishes go to Lex’s friends and family. We can only hope for the best.<\/p>\n
Normal service will be resumed shortly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m sure some will think this is inappropriately personal, but it’s my blog and I’ll write what I want to. Looking at Howard’s and Niall’s blogs, I was sad to hear the news that Lex de Haan’s illness has worsened. I knew he was ill because he couldn’t make the Scottish OUG Conference and was… Continue reading It comes to us all in the end<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":869,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/03\/lex-de-haan-tribute\/","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":0},"title":"Lex de Haan Tribute","date":"February 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I've just been informed that there is a tribute to Lex de Haan on the Oak Table website. If you are logged into the site, it is possible to add personal comments to the article.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":922,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2005\/10\/31\/ukoug-2005-day-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":1},"title":"UKOUG 2005 – Day 1","date":"October 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, after a power cut in Central Birmingham that delayed the start of the conference by about an hour, things are moving along nicely. The presentations that I've attended so far are :-Tom Kyte's SQL techniques. As excellent as I expected and I preferred Tom's presentation technique to last years\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1618,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/21\/conference-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":2},"title":"Conference Update","date":"November 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The week before the UKOUG conference (or more accurately - UKOUG Conference Series Technology and E-Business Suite 2010. Maybe I'll just stick to UKOUG) and whilst it's an unusual year in as much as I'm not presenting some traditions hold true. I have a stinking cold - my third in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1077,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/06\/presentations-completed-and-to-come\/","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":3},"title":"Presentations completed and to come","date":"September 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday was the developer training\/seminar that I mentioned in an earlier blog. It was okay I suppose but I made a bad decision to drop analytics because I didn't feel I could do them justice in the available time. Then I finished half an hour early \ud83d\ude41 Based on verbal\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1605,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/18\/advert-ukoug-scottish-conference-next-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":4},"title":"Advert: UKOUG Scottish Conference next week","date":"May 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Is it really that time already? I'll be working in London, but for those of you who can make it, this just in from Thomas Presslie ...\"The annual Scottish Oracle Conference is being held in Glasgow on 27th May 2010.\u00a0 Now with five streams and keynote by David Callaghan, Senior\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1296,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/16\/fork-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":870,"position":5},"title":"fork (2)","date":"July 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't know how this will go and it could be a bad idea, but I've been thinking about it recently. I've decided to fork the blog. Why?Well, I'm aware that a lot of what I write is just gossip, rants and nonsense, basically. Part of me understands that can\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 29 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}